The Machine of All Things
by Chasing Liquor
Summary: Earth is gone; Atlantis is gone. Anyone can be anything when you strip them bare. Features McKay, Sheppard, Keller, Mitchell, and Jackson.


**Disclaimer**: Trust me, MGM, I don't have assets!

**Spoilers:** None.

**Description:** Earth is gone; Atlantis is gone. Anyone can be anything when you strip them bare. (Features McKay, Sheppard, Keller, Mitchell, Jackson).

A post-apocalyptic story, I suppose.

**Warnings:** There's some violent imagery in this.

**A/N**: As strange as it may sound, I needed to recharge after writing all of the light-hearted stuff that appears in the first two chapters of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" I had an urge to write something darker, and this sure as hell qualifies.

I don't really know how to frame this story, except to say that it's very strange, and I have no idea if that's a positive or a negative in this case. It reads kind of like a bad dream almost. In any case, leave me a review and let me know your thoughts. Thanks, and I hope you enjoy.

* * *

**The Machine of All Things**

* * *

_There's a war outside still ragin'_

_You say it ain't ours anymore to win_

_- Bruce Springsteen_

* * *

It really didn't hurt as much as it used to. And anyway, it let him know he was alive.

Sheppard, Mitchell, and Jackson hauled the beaten men and woman to their feet, handling them a lot rougher than was necessary.

He didn't argue the treatment. He never did. A while back, he decided that some people deserve things.

"You all right?" Jackson asked.

McKay nodded, wiping some of the blood off his face before it could drip into his eyes. He pushed himself up from the ground, holstering his Genii gun, and only let show a mild grimace.

The sun was about halfway down, and the tree line was starting to look ominous. They wouldn't have much light to guide them back. Sheppard knew that, and after a weary glance at the man who was once a scientist, he dug the barrel of his gun into one of the captives' backs, nudging him forward.

"Move," he murmured coldly.

The bearded soldier stumbled ahead, trying but failing to muffle a pained grunt.

Mitchell looked him over, then looked over his comrades. The other three were young, none older than twenty. The girl in particular looked too young for the gun she'd been wielding. But that was just the way of things.

"We're not going to tell you anything," the bearded one gnarled.

Jackson smirked, but it didn't reach his eyes. Not even to darken them.

"Maybe you won't, but they will," he said, gesturing to the young ones. "They don't have the stomach for it."

The bearded man turned slightly, probably just to look at Jackson, but Sheppard clubbed him in the face with his gun regardless, and watched as he fell to the ground.

Sheppard said he did things like that to be cautious, but McKay thought there was another reason. He didn't think much of it this time, though, as he wiped some blood from his brow.

OooooooooooooooooooooooooooO

The last half-mile was walked in total darkness, but their sense for landscapes had been perfected during the last year, and they didn't have any problem finding the safe house.

When they got there, Mitchell and Sheppard forced the captives into a windowless room, empty but for a half-dozen chairs, and locked them there.

Jackson hung back by the door beside McKay, not talking to him, or even looking at him, just waiting patiently for Keller to emerge from the adjoining room. She frowned, as she was prone to do.

She took McKay by the arm, with a grip far less savage than the rest of them had, and led him into the room she'd just come from, sitting him down on one of the cots with a sigh. She grabbed a towel, put it in his hand, and then pressed his hand against his forehead. Then she dug her medical kit out from underneath an adjacent cot.

She didn't say anything, but she glanced up at Jackson, and he said, "We found them on the edge of the woods, about a mile down."

"Does Laden know we're here?" she asked calmly, pulling the towel away from McKay's face to get a look at his wound.

The injured man shook his head just slightly.

"I don't think so," he said. "Just a recon team. They only check in every fifth day or so. Even when Laden figures out they're missing, he won't know what planet they're on."

Keller nodded mildly, glancing up at Jackson.

"Can you bring me some water, Daniel?"

He didn't respond to her, but he left to retrieve it.

Keller pressed the towel back against McKay's wound, but this time she held it herself, his hands lying still in his lap.

She was sorry she'd gotten used to that sight: his hands being still.

"Does it hurt?" she asked softly.

He shook his head, and his lips curved up a bit.

"Not so much. I mean, yeah, but…" He sort of shrugged. "But not so much."

She nodded, understanding. And he loved her for that.

Jackson returned with the water, filled to the top of a container they'd stolen from some tribe a while back. Keller poured a little on a cloth, which replaced the towel, as she gently wiped away some of the blood on McKay's forehead.

Mitchell and Sheppard joined them, each leaning against opposite walls, Sheppard's hand posed against his hip.

"How's he look, Doc?" he asked.

Keller smiled weakly.

"He'll be fine. A few stitches, some sleep."

"Good."

"Do any of…" She paused. "Are any of them hurt?"

Mitchell spoke before Sheppard could, and there was ice in his eyes.

"Yes, and they're going to stay that way unless they have anything useful to say."

Keller met his gaze firmly.

"If they're _hurt_, then I need to _help_ them."

"The hell you do!" Mitchell snapped. "Those bastards aren't getting anything 'till they've got something to give. It's called quid pro quo."

Keller stood up, dropping the cloth and towel she'd been holding, and stood face to face with the pilot.

"You can't just expect me to sit here and count sheep while there's injured people in need of medical attention, Cam! You don't get to tell me which patients I'm allowed to treat!"

Sheppard tried to step in, but Mitchell cut him off again.

"This isn't up for debate, Doc! It's not happening!" he shouted, the words spat right in her face.

Jackson rubbed his forehead gruffly, and when he saw a retort ready to spill from Keller's mouth, he yelled, "Would both of you please _shut up_?!"

They obliged him.

An awkward silence lingered, seeming to wind through the air like a lazy pillar of smoke.

The doctor turned away, lest she act on the urge to strike the man. Her back was rigid, but her hands were dangling loosely at her sides, like there was some emotional disconnect amongst her affectations.

McKay looked between her and Mitchell uncomfortably, inconspicuously raising a hand to press against his wound, which bled again in his physician's absence.

It was finally Sheppard who spoke.

"Look, Doc, I get it. Heal all, no exceptions," he said quietly, trying not to make it sound as trivial as he thought it was. "But they could have intel we need, and we're not going to get it playing nice."

Keller shook her head, but when she turned back to face him, it was clear most of the fight had left her. She could barely lift her eyes to meet his.

"Just because they're Genii…" Her breath hitched. "They're still people, John."

"Yeah. The same people who might have killed Lorne and Davis last week," Sheppard said, his voice sounding hoarse when he invoked them. "The same people who might know about the deal the Genii made with Michael."

Mitchell stepped forward again, but he sounded much calmer now, and his voice wasn't accusing or angry. Just anguished. Miserable.

"They're animals, Jennifer," he murmured. "They took everything in two galaxies away from us. And it's time we started taking things from them."

Her mind flashed through a hundred memories, a mosaic of the divine and the despicable, and she pictured the home she had, and then she pictured it taken away. So much ruin. So much lost to the machine of all things.

She glanced at McKay, either for support or for permission. When he gave neither, and merely looked away, she waited an instant, avoiding all their eyes, and then nodded.

That was all the affirmation Mitchell and Sheppard required. They walked into the other room, one after the other, and unlocked the door to the makeshift cell. Keller flinched when it slammed shut behind them.

Everything was still for a while after that. The doctor didn't move, and neither did Jackson, and McKay made no effort to garner either's attention, calmly pressing his palm against the bloody flesh on his forehead.

It was finally Jackson who gestured toward McKay.

"Jennifer?"

She glanced up, letting out a gasp more dramatic than his injury.

"I'm – I'm sorry, Rodney."

"It's okay," he said.

Keller nodded, and she knew he meant it. But it made her sad that he did. A long time ago, he would have been annoyed with her. The man before her now, though, would just sit there and bleed like it was the natural order of things. And that was just so terrible.

She handed him back the bloody towel, and he held it against his head again. Then she placed her hands on his chest and applied gentle pressure.

"Lie down," she said quietly. "I have to close it up."

He complied easily.

Neither noticed when Jackson left them.

OooooooooooooooooooooooooooO

Mitchell delivered a brutal right cross that shattered the bearded man's cheekbone. But it hardly drew much of a reaction. Sheppard leaned back against the wall beside the door, arms crossed. Jackson slowly paced between them.

The captives were all seated, hands bound behind their chairs.

The girl and the young men looked terrified. But Mitchell was determined to crack the older one.

"Tell me about the deal," the Colonel said, stepping back and flexing his hand. "I wanna know how it happened."

The bearded man spat blood onto himself.

"I… don't know," he ground out.

"Bullshit!"

"I don't _know_ anything!" the man shouted, his body quivering, no doubt in shock.

Sheppard stepped away from the wall, slowly walking out of the shadows into the dim light of the one bulb hanging from the ceiling. He had no sympathy, even for the young ones. He couldn't even find pity within him, that simplest courtesy of all, as he stood beside Mitchell.

"I'm not sure you're taking us very seriously," Sheppard said. "Maybe you don't quite understand what you and your people have done."

The bearded man shook his head contemptuously, nearly vomiting for his effort.

"We did what we had to do," he croaked, "to keep our people safe."

Jackson appeared, only half in the light, like he was part corporeal and part specter, and he laughed sardonically.

"You stupid, _stupid_ son of a bitch," he growled. "Do you think Michael is just going to leave you alone forever?"

"We have a deal."

"Yeah, until he decides you have something he wants. Or he gets tired of you. Or he needs new _test subjects_!"

Mitchell stepped in front of him the bearded man again, leaning in close.

"There were _six billion_ people on our planet. And _you_ killed all of them!" he barked, slapping him across the face. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you right now."

The man thought for a time, but in truth none came to him.

OooooooooooooooooooooooooooO

Keller ran her thumb overtop the white bandage, making sure it was going to stay on. When she was satisfied, she moved to stand up, but McKay's hand on his arm stopped her.

She looked back at him inquiringly.

"Thank you," he said softly.

She smiled faintly, nodding, and she meant to get up after that. But for some reason, she couldn't. Maybe it was the way he was looking at her, or maybe she was just remembering what could have been between them, before things went wrong.

He had such sad eyes, she thought. Beautiful, sad eyes.

"Jen?"

"Yes?"

He took her hand, but only so he'd have an excuse to look somewhere besides her face.

"I, um…"

She watched him patiently. When it became clear he was bankrupt of courage, though, she lay her other hand on his face, and he was forced to meet her eyes.

"What are we doing?" he asked quietly, a tremor in his voice.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean…" He shook his head. "Everything's gone. And there's just us."

She watched the lines around his mouth deepen as he considered something. For just a moment, it reminded her of better days. But he spoiled it by speaking.

"Did you ever read 'Robinson Crusoe?'" he asked.

Keller let out a perplexed breath.

"Um… yeah. In college, I think."

McKay let go of her hand, finding a far-off point to stare at. She'd never heard him, in all their conversations, ever mention a work of fiction. It almost seemed beneath him.

"After the wreck, when he's gotten to shore, he swims back to the ship to get supplies – knives, guns, tools, whatever. And he says later how lucky he was to have them. Because without them, he'd be a savage."

He finally looked at her again, and she only noticed in passing that his bandage was slowly reddening. She was too focused on his unfocused eyes.

"You were right," he said. "We should have let you help them."

OooooooooooooooooooooooooooO

A tooth fell out of the bearded man's mouth when he coughed. Mitchell's knuckles were cut and bloody, and Sheppard's were marked as well, though subtler. Jackson paced along the wall in the darkness.

"I don't know anything!" the bearded man wept, barely able to speak now, every bone in his face broken or bruised. "Nothing, nothing. I – I don't know. _Please_, I don't **know**!"

The young girl, entirely silent throughout the entire interrogation, spoke up tearfully from the side of the cell, her voice desperate and slurred and pitiful.

"He's lying!" she cried.

Sheppard's head whipped around to look at her.

"What did you say?"

She closed her eyes, tears pouring down her face and mixing with the dry blood on her cheeks.

"He's lying he's lying he's _lying_!"

The bearded man clenched, his eyes slowly leaving Mitchell's and finding hers. It wasn't clear whether he was terrified of a truth or an untruth, or if the distinction mattered.

"About what?" Jackson asked, his voice just loud enough to be heard.

"It was him! It – it was him!" she sobbed. "He killed the ones who were with you! I saw him, I saw him!"

Sheppard leaned down in front of her, his eyes no more than eight inches from hers. He spoke softly, like a caress to sooth her pain.

"Lorne? And Davis?"

She paused, the names new to her ears, and after a moment of thought, she swiftly nodded.

"Yes yes! He killed them!" she said quickly, with the huge, wild eyes of a coke fiend. "He did it! He did it!"

The other two said nothing of the revelation.

The bearded man trembled, his eyes pleading in that most humble way of men.

The muscles in Mitchell's face spasmed 'neath the strain of anger, and it was then as he watched the reddish-purple tint that colored his captor's visage, that the bearded man shut his eyes for what he knew would come.

Mitchell unholstered his gun and shot him in the chest.

Sheppard recoiled at the echoing crackle.

Jackson stepped out of the darkness, into the light, his eyes twice the size they were supposed to be.

There was no mistaking the permanence of death on the bearded man's face.

"What did you _do_?!" Jackson screamed. "What are you **doing**?!"

Sheppard glanced at the girl, whose sobs so wracked her body that she could barely breathe, oxygen filling her lungs in short, painful gasps. The two young men tried to turn away, but they were pinned to their seats, eyes squeezed shut.

"Okay, Cam," Sheppard said, his voice as calm as he could make it, hands outstretched in appeasement. "Why don't you just… put that down for a second, okay?"

Frightened fists pounded on the door, and they could all hear McKay and Keller screaming, but they couldn't make out what they were saying.

"He had to die," Mitchell said, softly and matter-of-factly, eyes glazed over. "That's what you do with animals when they're sick."

Jackson held out his own hands in a similar gesture to Sheppard's.

"Just… put the gun down, Cam. And we can have a nice long talk about it."

The girl's sobs were deafening, bloodcurdling, and Mitchell's eyes slowly moved from the bearded man's corpse to her messy young face.

OooooooooooooooooooooooooooO

"Open the door!" McKay shouted, throwing his entire mass into it, over and over and over. "Open the God damn door!"

Keller tossed her own frail body into the steel obstacle, but neither hers nor McKay's earnest efforts amounted to anything.

They kept trying, though. They kept trying.

They kept trying as they heard another gunshot.

Then another.

And then another.

And the machine of all things, it turned and turned and turned.

* * *

**FIN**

* * *


End file.
